


Achingly Beautiful

by DARWIN51



Category: Kate McKinnon - Fandom, Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night Live RPF
Genre: Feminism, Hallelujah, Hillary Clinton - Freeform, Kate McKinnon - Freeform, LGBT, LGBTQ Themes, Music, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8548723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DARWIN51/pseuds/DARWIN51
Summary: A short behind-the-scenes take on the 11.12.16 episode before and after Kate McKinnon's "Hallelujah"





	

Just as it had been in Dress, by the time Kate delicately lowered the keys to strike the final chord, the room was in tears. Only this time we weren’t in the back room, or rushing around from Makeup to dressing rooms. This time, everyone stood silent just offstage, frozen in our own moment of solitary reflection that only Kate could bring in this time of chaos. Every cast member, producer, stage hand, director, and camera operator stopped to not only listen, but to watch as well. As if the achingly beautiful vocals and chords weren’t eliciting enough emotion, watching Kate’s face falter between smile and suppressed tears, guaranteed that no one was able to take their eyes away. 

“I’m not giving up, and neither should you.” 

I thought for sure she was going to break on that line, like she had in Dress. All of us backstage were swiping at wet cheeks, and we weren’t the ones singing it, performing it, dressed as our defeated hero… relating so directly to the lyrics… We weren’t the ones who were so directly threatened by the outcome of this election. We weren’t the ones having our right to marry threatened, being threatened with literal torture like conversion therapy or shock therapy. That wasn’t us. That was the woman sitting on the piano bench just twenty feet away, holding to the crowd a smile so broken. 

“And live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.” 

I was surprised to hear her break more on that line than the previous one. She held the smile as the camera panned out, and the director gave the cue that we had entered the intro theme. Kate stayed on the bench for a moment, turned her head down to the keys and took a visible, shaky deep breath. Then she stood so the stage hands could quickly move the piano and bench for Dave Chappelle’s monologue. Kate kept her head bowed as she walked towards us offstage. She knew we all were watching.  
Now we were just waiting for her to look up. 

As she stepped past the curtain, she lifted her head, and her jaw dropped instantly, her hand flying to cover her mouth as the tears finally broke through when she saw what, or who, was waiting for her. 

If any of us here in Studio 8H thought Wednesday morning had been rough for us, that was quickly belittled as soon as Kate walked in. Her eyes had been ringed with redness, her hair down in loose curls, head tipped to the ground, and her flannel shirt slightly disheveled. She had walked up to Leslie, put both hands on her shoulders, and said with a painful joking smile, “We have to call off the wedding. I don’t think I’ll be able to marry you anymore.” Her voice broke on the word “marry” and she fell into Leslie in a joking fake-sad hug, burying her face in Leslie’s shirt. My heart caught in my throat when Kate didn’t pull away, but instead started shaking, and we realized she was really crying, for real. Hard. Leslie pulled her close, tight. At that moment Pete had walked in on the other side of the room, saw Kate and Leslie, and just mumbled “Oh god.” and turned away. Later I overheard him tell Alex Moffat that he thought he had been finally getting it together after waking up to hear the news about the election, “But then I walked in and saw Kate, and I just fuckin’ lost it all over again.” 

I wasn’t sure if there was something else wrong with Kate, besides the election, because I thought I saw some deeper pain in her eyes when she turned to look at me.

I noticed a small red streak on her right cheekbone, and another one next to her right eyebrow. It was some sort of scrape. When I asked her what happened, she just said that she tripped on her way here. Leslie overheard this, and being the protective friend she is, she pressed Kate until she admitted someone had bumped into her while she was walking down the street earlier. “Not to profile” she added before describing a middle-aged white man (who had plenty of room on the sidewalk and no need to bump into her, sending her against a brick wall of a storefront). She said he had muttered something at her. She told us she didn't quite catch what he said, but her eyes said she heard him just fine. I had been worried about her being in public recently. As not only the first openly lesbian SNL cast member in history, but as someone who had played Hillary Clinton many times, and had almost always portrayed her in a positive light. That makes her a target, and hurting her would be a statement for sure. I guess I was glad a small scrape from a brick wall was the worst damage done. So far. “Nothing the makeup department can’t fix.” She added. Like that’s what we were worried about. 

We all finally learned what was really wrong when we sat down to read the new scripts the writers had been working furiously at all night. Kate asked if she could keep her phone out and be excused if it rang. It was an odd request, since we would usually just take a call if we really needed to, without asking permission, and only be slightly scolded by Lorne when we got back. So Lorne asked if she was expecting a call. 

That’s when she started to break down. Just a little at first, while she explained how she hadn’t slept at all; she was up all night on the phone talking her friend out of committing suicide. And ex girlfriend, as it turns out, whom Kate still remained good friends with, who lived in Texas. Her voice cracked and broke as she explained that she made her friend promise to contact her if she was feeling that way again. Like a true professional actress, Kate seemed near her normal self for the rest of the week after Wednesday. However, all of Wednesday she was a worried wreck, understandably over many different things, so Lorne agreed to only put her in two sketches for this week’s episode: Weekend Update as RBG, and another Last Call. 

That was when Leslie and I decided to track down Kate’s friend. We got everyone to pitch in and purchased a plane ticket from Austin to New York. We made sure Kate knew nothing about it. 

Which brings me back here to this moment when Kate walked offstage from her achingly beautiful rendition of “Hallelujah”, which was a last-minute addition to the lineup. Tears glistened in her eyes, highlighting her small smile that said she knew what a good job she’d done. But when she lifted her head to see her friend, the one she had talked out of suicide just days ago, waiting for her, her eyes widened, the smile becoming a look of shock and the tears fell over her hand as she covered her mouth. 

She ran forwards without saying a word or even looking at any of us. She had completely tunnel-visioned on the person she had thought was going to die just a few days ago. Whose life she had literally saved. 

Their hug was as close and tight as you’d expect to see from sisters, with Kate’s friend being momentarily lifted off her feet. Both girls were crying, and they had so many reasons to. I could hear Kate mumble in a pitch that I’ve never heard from her before, the kind that only comes through tears, “Don’t go. Don’t you fucking leave me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment please! I was a little nervous about doing an SNL fiction so let me know if it turned out okay.


End file.
